Abstract
We will examine the revolts, begun in October of 2019, and currently developing in Chile under three conjoined parts. First, we will not try to theoretically ‘tame’ the revolutionary creature, but rather to plug immanently into the energy of the ‘potentia’ of the revolutionary event. To this extent, we will highlight the shortcomings of a theoretical enterprise that intends to explain it in traditional terms or that thrives for a variant of simple ‘reformism’. Second, and consequently, we will describe how the concept of the constitution (and its practice) is the perfect product of coloniality. Hence, the concept of the ‘constitutional trap’ is not something unique to the Chilean experiment, but that the constitutional idea itself is the main pipeline of coloniality and the most sophisticated product in the contention of democracy. Third, and to encompass and give a particular direction to the previous topics, we will deploy the ‘theory of encryption of power’ and the concept of the ‘hidden people’ (or the people as a synecdoche) to explicate the Chilean phenomenon under a new light, where no past is irrevocable, and no future is necessary.
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Notes
Term coined and developed by Chilean constitutionalist Fernando Atria that is the basis for ‘What Constitution? On Chile’s Constitutional Awakening’, Pardo-Vergara and Ansaldi, position article of this issue.
In its most simple definition as the drive to reform existing institutions instead of abolishing them through a revolutionary event.
Understood as Aristotle´s ‘Energeia’; for a clarification see Sanín-Restrepo (2016).
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We would like to express our gratitude to Angus McDonald for meticulously revising and editing this text.
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Sanín-Restrepo, R., Araujo, M.M. Is the Constitution the Trap? Decryption and Revolution in Chile. Law Critique 31, 41–49 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-020-09261-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-020-09261-z